The present invention relates to a payout gate for a gaming device provided with a gaming panel supporting several payout gates, each gate comprising
two pins projecting from a level of the gaming panel, forming between themselves for a coin or a token moving along the gaming panel an inlet into a sensor operating a machinery for distributing payouts, PA1 a bearer for supporting the pins and PA1 a tightening means fastening the bearer to the gaming panel.
Various gaming devices are known, in which payout gates of the type mentioned are used in order to control the operation of the game, such as a machinery for distributing payouts, a mechanism for scoring points or another actuating mechanism, depending on whether a coin hit along the gaming panel passes through a payout gate or not. Therefore, a coin does not only mean metal coins, but also various tokens and similar, usually round plate-like metal pieces. However, the invention will be described in the following for the sake of clearness in connection with a gaming device in which a coin is hit along the gaming panel by means of a hitting device and depending on how the coin runs the player either looses the stake or wins. In the upper part of the panel there are payout gates, which lead to a sensor operating the machinery for distributing payouts. When the coin passes through a gate, the player wins a certain sum, and when the coin passes beside the gate, the player looses his stake.
The height and/or inclined position of the inlet formed by the pair of pins of a payout gate has a substantial influence on how difficult it is for the player to get a coin hit through the payout gate in the gaming panel. In order to change and adjust the payout proportion in a gaming device as well as in connection with the maintenance of the gaming device, it is necessary to detach the pins of the payout gate and to refasten them to the gaming panel in a new position.
Such an easily adjustable payout gate is described in Finnish Patent 37712. In the gate structure described, the pin bearer can be adjusted into various positions and locked by means of a wing nut to a screw projecting from the back surface of the gaming panel. By turning the wing nut the bearer is tightened with a suitable tightness against the gaming panel.
However, a drawback of such a known payout gate is that a tightening of the gate carried out manually usually remains very inaccurate. It has turned out that the tightness of the fastening of the gate has an influence on the resilience of the pins, which again has a substantial effect on the tendency of the gate to allow also other coins to pass through the gate than those coming accurately between the pins and thus has an effect also on the payout proportion of the gate. A gate causing a coin hitting a pin to rebound and preventing the coin from passing through the inlet between the pins can, tightened to another tightness, dampen the kinetic energy of a coin hitting the pin in the same manner and cause the coin to fall towards the inlet and further through it. To tighten the known payout gate to an appropriate tightness depends greatly on the experience of the person attending to the maintenance, because it is difficult to define the degree of tightness accurately by means of instructions. Therefore, differences exist between gaming devices, which differences are difficult to foresee or compensate. This is a remarkable problem, because the influence of the fastening tightness of the gate on the payout proportion is up to 20%.